BS: Hip replacement tales!

Subject: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 03:55 PM

My wife had a new hip installed this afternoon - she told me that being just sedated apart from complete numbing of her lower half of course, she could hear sawing and banging during the procedure - but no drilling!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 04:13 PM

My mum had one and made a point of not having general anaesthetic. She spent her working life as a physiotherapist in hospitals but has always had a fear general anaesthetic. As far as I understand it, she was quite relaxed through the operation.

I believe that apart from the transport on a rickety ambulance, she found the experience quite pleasant. I can't begin to work out how the NHS comes to such arrangements but from North Norfolk, she was offered the op in a Spire in Cambridge! I also believe that (I think it might have been close to Christmas but am not sure) she was one of few in the hospital and received pretty much exclusive attention!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 04:44 PM

My wife almost had a new hip installed about two weeks ago. While on the operating table being aware of everything put her into such stress that her heart went into AF and they had to cancel.

Fortunately they had not started actually cutting yet: it was all the (literally) theatrics that did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 05:10 PM

Sorry to read that, Dave.

Personally, I'm scared of most things medical and have mostly found hospital stays or even visits to others decidedly uncomfortable (although I didn't mind the Helesdon one, it was relaxed, very little evidence of medical things and good food - it's such a shame to see the Norfolk and Suffolk trust it's now part of to be in such a mess).

Mum on the other hand, in training, has seen various orthopaedic ops and I believe a heart op and finds that side interesting to watch. It doesn't help her personal fears of a GA though.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 05:28 PM

Even surgical nurses can have adverse fear reactions.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jos
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 05:31 PM

I had an epidural (nothing else was on offer). Before it was administered they said they were going to give me an injection that would take me to 'a happy place'. It took me to the darkest loneliest unhappiest place that I couldn't even have imagined.
The operation was incredibly noisy, it sounded as if they were demolishing the building.
The epidural wore off while they were still putting in the stitches.

At my follow-up appointment the surgeon seemed surprised that I hadn't 'enjoyed' my operation. Well I didn't know I was supposed to enjoy it, but even so, I never thought it would be so horrible. I am doing everything I can to avoid wearing out the other hip - I never want to go through that again. So if you were wondering why I've stopped dancing, that's why.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 07:04 PM

Crikey, my wife's epidural should be good for about 12 hours after which she has serious painkillers lined up. Physio torture begins in the morning!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 07:20 PM

When the time is right Bonzo remind your wife of the simple pain free pleasures down the road.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 08:16 PM

My sister had a hip replaced, and I noticed that it hurt her to get out of bed. Her pyjamas would hit the wrinkles in the sheets, hang up and cause pain.

When a friend was scheduled for a replacement, I sewed her a robe from the slickest fabric I could find, to aid in sliding out of bed. the slick robe was so helpful that it has been lent to three more women having joint replacements.

Maybe something similar (ready-made, I suppose)would help your wife.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 19 - 08:45 PM

When my MIL broke her hip the (hand specialist) who replaced it put in one that was for a 6'4" man. This did not work well for a woman in her early 70s who was 5'8" or so. Two years later she had it removed (and the docs were VERY worried) and replaced at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. It served her well for 25 years or thereabouts.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 07:45 AM

The Venaflow Elite pump makes interesting noises!!! Her first physio session expected this afternoon!!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 08:51 AM

And dad had a partial hip replacement following a fall at home. That turned out to be a bit of a saga. The op went OK and they had him walking. I think the only complaint at that point was that the ward he was on was full of people suffering from severe dementia and it was very noisy.

Unfortunately (and unrelated to the op) he fell ill while there and wound up having a second op, this time for adhesions. He reacted badly to that one and was on an acute ward for a week or so before being transferred to a recovery place nearer to home.

We struggled when he first came home with several “close shaves” and times when we couldn’t get him up from a chair. I know my mother was a physiotherapist who spent most of her time in elderly care so has had a fair amount of experience in these things but matters are not so easy when in your 80s and suffering from mobility problems yourself.

Anyway, he gets around OK most of the while now but needing a zimmer and requiring a wheelchair to access the living room table where he uses his lap top and to access his bureau in the study. There still are the odd occasions of problems but we are more able to deal with them now.

We’ve no questions over the medical care but do wonder about the very limited/token physiotherapy he received after recovering from his second op and a discharge time which I think was very close to Easter, a time when there was no physiotherapist support at the recovery hospital. I don’t think anyone on the rehab side had seen him 2 days prior to release.

I might also question the care plan he was left with. It involved daily (and in our case, paid for) visits at some time in the morning to get him out of bed, dressed and in to the living room and at some time (say between 7 and 10) to put him back to bed and my feeling is that things would have been allowed to continue that way indefinitely. We put a stop to that very early on and, while not able to improve the walking to an extent where we see walking without a zimmer as ever being possible, we did soon reach a stage where he can manage these tasks himself. We just have assistance in once a week to help him have a bath.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 10:21 AM

Some hip replacements may not be necessary and are based more on dogma and profit than true efficacy. I was on an assembly line for a hip replacement after an MRI when I sought help from a chiropractor who removed adhesions and scar tissue in 10 minutes. (VERY painful)
I immediately had full range of motion to this day and became pain free with weight loss. In fact it works better than my good hip joint.
This taught me to exhaust alternatives. When I saw my grandma who had both hips and knees replaced I was determined to avoid this procedure.

But that's just me and those who benefit from hip replacements are glad they did, depending on the replacement part manufacture and carpentry skills of the surgeon. Some cause problems ranging from metal fragments to fracture.


I used to do desensitization pre op training to lessen the fear reactions for heart surgery (valves) and facial surgeries (near motor nerves) via hypnosis. Back then hip replacements were not invented yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 11:04 AM

Different perspectives Donuel but I do not see profit as being a motive with services like our UK NHS.

As for being effective, my understanding is that many do get a "new lease of life" after hip and other orthopaedic procedures such as knee replacement.

In mum's case, she didn't really see the "sprightly" improvement as other arthritic conditions including sacroilliac joint and problems with feet were also in play to some extent but she, actually somewhat reluctantly, did view her own op as necessary to maintain the mobility she had.

She sometimes contemplates further ops but I don't know if/when she might try to take that further.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jos
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 11:04 AM

I certainly needed the new hip. I'd put it off so long I had one leg noticeably shorter than the other. At least they are now the same length.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 12:09 PM

The surgeon told my wife that her hip was crumbling, no wonder that she had so much pain.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 10:23 PM

Her indoors has had both hips replaced, and is VERY happy with them. She is pretty courageous ("A woman gets so much pain anyway") and was exercising next day. Different surgeons, slightly different sites, (one through that big hip muscle, one behind it). She never even tried the morphine.
You should see her X-ray! It looks like one of Billy-the-Kid with his gunbelt on.
A danger. There is a possibility that there will be so little pain that the patient will over-exercise too soon after. She did. Keep To the recommendations!
She hated the compression stockings.
And retain the note that says that you've had a replacement. You won't get on an aeroplane without it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 03:10 AM

Two things stand out in my first one - the first hospital experience I'd since I was a three-year old
I was terrified of the idea of a major operation but had decided that once they knocked me out I'd be oblivious to what they did
On the morning of the op I got a visit from the anesthetist, who was a White South 'Efrican' of the worst kind - banging on about 'the troublesome Blecks'
I though it not a good idea to argue politics with your anesthetist on the morning of a major op, so I said nowt
He told me that, rather than knocking me out, he would give me an epidural (he had to explain what it was)
The idea was to supply me with headphones so I couldn't hear what was going on - they forgot to give me them and I didn't like to ask
I didn't mind the hacking and banging too much (MacColl's relaxation exercises worked a treat), until I heard the doctor ask a nurse "hand me that nail"
If there had been a window, I would have been in Gort (the next town)
The second hip, 18 months ago, was a doddle, except it always sets the theft alarm off when I go into my local bookshop
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 05:52 AM

Interesting experiences all, she has just had physio round 2 from oddly enough one of her former Spanish students, and later on will have the hell of the stairs, fitted in around a blood transfusion!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 05:31 PM

2 days and 5 hours since the operation and she is getting off and on the bed by herself - with associated pain of course!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 05:59 PM

Well done Bonzo's wife! I was a junior anaesthetist back in the mid-1970s when all ops were done under general anaesthetic: I got the impression it was sheer carpentry. Probably still is, but without all the jokes the patient couldn't hear, which kept long ops bearable!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Mar 19 - 09:46 AM

She will be discharged this afternoon ............eventually!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Mar 19 - 12:37 PM

My old mum stubbornly refuses to have her bunion seen by a doctor..

She's even hidden/ binned all her outdoor shoes...

Obviously, she's forgot we can book home appointments.....

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Mar 19 - 06:22 AM

Not easy to put on anti-embolism stockings, even with the plastic bag trick! We have 6 weeks of that now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 Mar 19 - 01:32 PM

My wife has had a very handy "picker upper" for some years which, as she cannot bend more than 90 degrees for some weeks, it accompanies her upstairs and down in case she drops anything. This is fine until she drops the picker upper, which has happened several times today!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Mar 19 - 01:52 PM

Powerful magnets on the end of a good ball of string..

Not joking, yesterday I had to retrieve a screwdriver bit that had fallen into the spagetti jungle of cables
in the narrow dark void between my computer desk and the wall...

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 25 Mar 19 - 02:30 PM

Mum just looses things when she's busy or gets distracted. Sometimes she will get so far without her walking stick and then struggle. Two things I've done here: Her best stick is black. I've wrapped 2 bands (the width of the tap) of white insulation round it to make it easier to spot. There is a spare adjustable stick kept in the kitchen. I widened a clip for 22 copper pipe a little to fit and screwed it into the side of a kitchen unit. The stick is parked in there.

As for the grabbers, I keep one of these in the porch. It's rarely used but it's a useful thing to have around when for example somtething gets dropped behind a radiator.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 10:29 AM

My wife saw surgeon for post hip replacement review yesterday evening, he was amazed at her progress after just 2 weeks and 2 days and signed her off!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 06:45 AM

Zimmer frame & crutches go into the loft today for another time - my knees perhaps aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggrh!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 06:18 PM

Good for you both. What do we eat for calcium?

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 01:30 PM

My wife is on the operating table as I type, for a second attempt. As ai said above, the last was aborted because of a heart fibrillation but they are confident they are ready this time.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 04:31 PM

All completed successfully. Let's hope the recovery is as swift as Bonzo's wife experienced, but it is not a competition. If it takes longer I don't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Apr 19 - 07:24 AM

Life with less pain
Is a wonderful thing

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Apr 19 - 05:29 PM

All the best to your wife for a speedy recovery DMcG, and for your patience for being her legs for a while, putting on compression stockings and picking up everything she won't be able to bend down for!!!

My wife has hired a gadget to help her get in and out of the bath, which arrived in a huge box this afternoon!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Apr 19 - 09:15 AM

Neptune Libery Bath Lift!

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 14 Apr 19 - 10:26 AM

Sorry I’ve not posted to here in a few days but Dave, I’m pleased to learn things went OK this time round. And of course best withes with both bonzo and your wife’s recoveries, etc.

A bath lift (Aquajoy) is pretty much a permanent fixture here. I find it too much hassle to remove and unless we have a visitor or want to clean the bath more thoroughly, there is little to be gained in doing so. Both parents need it (dad with additional assistance and I suspect mum would get in a bath without but have a terrible struggle getting out) and the dressings for a long standing sore on my back prevent me from having a soak – they will take a splash but not much more.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Apr 19 - 02:29 AM

I've found the trick to putting on anti-embolism (??) or in my wife's case - compression stockings. She can now do her left leg, but needs me to do her right leg (hip replacement side).

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Apr 19 - 03:24 AM

The compression stockings are a bit mysterious. We were talking to the nurses and it appears some of the consultants immediately after the operation want them on both legs, some only on one. And once you get home, as we now have, our consultant doesn't recommend them at all.

I suspect they are one of those things (which are more common in medicine than you might expect) where the benefit falls into the "not proven" category.

Subject: RE: BS: Hip replacement tales!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Apr 19 - 05:00 PM

My wife needs to wear them anyway to prevent now healed leg ulcers re-appearing.